


Odd Happenings

by deathishauntedbyhumans



Series: EoNA [3]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Boats and Ships, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Friendship, Gen, Kender, Memory Magic, Rain, Tiefling, Vanara, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, crabs, the creature not the std
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 12:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19084954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathishauntedbyhumans/pseuds/deathishauntedbyhumans
Summary: Pep and his tiefling companion Asphodel take the stranded pirate Blackwater to their ship so that he can help them fix it. The captain of their ship, Manko, is strangely...apatheticwhen they find him by himself in his room.





	Odd Happenings

Manko is acting  _ odd  _ when they get back to the ship, which is a considerable judgement, coming from Pep. 

Pep doesn’t think it to be mean, though! It’s just that… Manko isn’t yelling as much as he usually does when things don’t go his way, and he’s not as annoyed as Pep expects him to be when they just barge into his room. 

And he doesn’t remember why they’re all there, which strikes Pep as the oddest of all. If there’s anything  _ he  _ remembers, it’s their weeks at sea learning how to be a semblance of a crew at Manko’s brusque insistence.

Pep climbs up onto the bed, unconsciously mirroring Asphodel, who has dropped to sit on the other side of Manko’s still form. 

“We fought a crab!” Pep bursts out with, because all of this silence is going to be the actual death of him. (If that crab couldn’t kill him, the silence  _ probably _ won’t, but you never know with things like that.) “Well, we fought three crabs, actually. They were giant crabs! I climbed on top of one, Manko!!” Pep points at something none of them can see, trying to demonstrate how high up he’d been. “I thought I killed one, but then it turns out that Ravi did it, but that’s okay.” Pep shrugs. “The crabs are dead now.”

Asphodel leans over towards Manko’s ear. “He nearly got himself killed. Big pinchers,” she says in a stage whisper, like Pep’s not supposed to hear. He hears anyways and nods, looking down at himself. 

“I’m very bloody,” he agrees.

“But I saved him,” Asphodel ascertains. “So he’s alright.”

“I’m great!” Pep states with a big grin. 

Manko, who’s been staring out the porthole throughout most of their story, finally looks at Pep. He blinks, like he’s trying to shake off sleep —and maybe that’s why he’s being  _ odd,  _ Pep surmises, because he might’ve just awoken from a nap and sometimes, that makes people odd— and slowly smiles. It’s small, a vague shadow of his usual smirk, but it’s something, so Pep will take it. 

“Is that where you got the crab meat from?” he asks, and he sounds bemused. Pep nods enthusiastically as Asphodel grins back at Manko and holds up the handful of crab meat she had torn out of the inside of the largest crab with her bare, dirty hands. 

“Yep!” 

“And we got a saw!” Pep adds in an attempt to give Manko context. “We had to fight the crabs to get the saw. Well, the crabs didn’t  _ have  _ the saw, but they were near it. We had to get the saw so that Blackwater could fix the ship.”

A shadow of confusion flickers over Manko’s furred features. “What?”

“Oh!” Asphodel exclaims. “We brought a man back to the ship!” 

At this, Manko actually stands up, and he immediately makes his way out of the room. Ever-ready to please, Pep hops off the bed and follows, and he feels rather than sees Asphodel filing out behind him as well. 

“Who is this?” Manko demands. He seems a little more like his old self, now, reaffirming Pep’s assumptions about the nap. “What is this stranger doing here? Is he coming with us?”

“Blackwater, Manko, Manko, Blackwater,” Asphodel says quickly, gesturing back and forth between them as she introduces each one. Pep focuses on the other questions, since Manko now knows who Blackwater is. 

“He’s going to fix our ship!” he reiterates, and then glances curiously at Blackwater. “I don’t think he’s coming with us…? Unless—“ Pep cocks his head to the side. “Do you  _ want  _ to come with us, Blackwater?”

For just a moment, Blackwater hesitates. He looks down at the hammer in his hand, the tools he’s already started laying out, and then his expression hardens again. 

“No,” he says firmly. “It’s too dangerous. You’re all going to die on the way out, anyways.”

“No, we won’t!” Pep contradicts immediately, because  _ what kind of an attitude is that?  _

“No?” Blackwater says scathingly. 

“No!” Pep repeats. “We have to make it out of here. We’re on a quest!”

Asphodel shakes her head. “If this little boy—“ Pep stops listening for a second, if only to try and determine whether or not Asphodel means any offence by her infantilization of him. He decides she doesn’t mean anything mean by it, because Asphodel has been nothing but kind to him since they’d met. He tunes back in. “—and live through it, then so can you!”

“He’s died  _ three times?”  _ Somehow, Pep is certain that isn’t the takeaway Blackwater was supposed to have. 

Asphodel points at Pep, who raises his hands excitedly and wiggles them about. “He’s fine!” She says it like it’s obvious, and Pep nods.

“I’m fine!”

Blackwater looks away, but Pep doesn’t want to let the subject drop. He rocks on the balls of his feet, lets a full thought form, and then adds, “W. Skyfell made it out of here, and so will we!” 

Behind him, Pep hears Asphodel make a sound of disbelief. “Did he, though?” she mumbles. Pep ignores her. He looks earnestly at Blackwater, widening his eyes innocently, and waits for Blackwater to look back at him. A moment later, when he does, Pep offers him an encouraging little smile. 

That same expression of confused  _ longing  _ crosses Blackwater’s face, and Pep smiles wider to attempt to convey his willingness to take Blackwater along with them. 

“...I’ll think about it,” Blackwater mutters at length, and Pep just barely resists the urge to cheer. Instead, he claps his hands together once and turns to Manko, who looks… rather wet and disgruntled, but less  _ odd  _ than before. 

“You should come back with us, Manko!” Pep suggests excitedly. It isn’t right for Manko to stay on the ship all alone for so long, even  _ if  _ Blackwater is there with him. Pep wants to spend time with him!! 

Manko, for his part, looks less-than-thrilled at the idea. “I think I’ll stay here,” he says, and the way he turns away makes Pep want to fight even harder for Manko to follow them back to Blackwater’s house. 

“Come on, Manko, come back with us! You’ll be with your friends! We want you to come with us!” 

Manko heaves out a long-suffering sigh and spins back around. “It’s cold and wet,” he states plainly, and while he has a valid point, it’s not enough for Pep to let him go. 

“It’s not that bad!”

“Oh yeah?” Manko stares Pep down, really gives him a good Look, and Pep looks him over. His fur is damp and bedraggled, admittedly, but it’s nothing a warm blanket won’t be able to fix. 

Asphodel holds up her shield, seemingly following a similar thought process. “We’ve got this to keep you from getting wet,” she offers, wiggling it enticingly towards Manko. 

“Come on, Manko, come with us,” Pep wheedles. Manko shoots a weak glare at Pep, turns it on Asphodel, and then snatches the shield out of her hand. 

“Fine,” he mutters. Pep grins and bounces along the deck of the boat, following Manko and ignoring the annoyed muttering he can faintly hear the vanara spewing under his breath. 

They’re nearly to the house when Asphodel catches up to them, but they make it inside and Pep is distracted before he can ask her why she’d hung back. 

“We found Manko!” Pep announces, striding in through the open door. Manko grumpily makes his way to the fireplace

“This place is a dump.”

Ravi chuckles. “You should have seen it when we got here.”

Pep plops himself down on the floor near Manko, intent on keeping him company to make up for leaving him behind before. “At least there are no crabs.” 

With a noncommittal hum, Manko pokes at the fireplace until he manages to start a fire. Pep begins to chatter to fill the silence in the room, mostly recounting the rest of their encounter with the rickety bridge over the chasm to the North Island and their fight with the crabs in a blow-by-blow story (with some demonstrations when words didn’t do it justice) to Manko, and anyone else that’s listening. 

**Author's Note:**

> Pep is my dumb kender boy!  
> Asphodel belongs to one of our campaign members!  
> Ravi belongs to @humorless_hexagon  
> Blackwater and Manko belong to my wonderful DM and roommate @ragtag_slyboots
> 
> Kudos/comments are love! Come scream at me on tumblr @deathishauntedbyhumans.


End file.
